With the proliferation of open mic nights and spoke word events, there are now many opportunities for writers to perform their work. Even if you would rather drink battery acid than read for an audience, I encourage you think again. Reading your work is a wonderful way to reach a wider audience, doubling as an occasion to develop confidence in yourself and in your writing.

I first began my writing career as a playwright, and am a great fan of actors. In my experience, the reading nights that work best are those in which actors read. It makes sense, then, that when preparing for performance writers could do worse than turn to the actor’s craft of performance. What is it that makes actors such engaging storytellers? Of course there is the stage experience, but there’s more to it than experience. The best actors assume professionalism in all performance, and that means preparation and rehearsal – of the voice, of the script, and of the work.

So here are some practical tips based on the actor’s craft designed to help you prepare for performance, so that you will be your dynamic best when standing in the spotlight:

Choose the right work. Whether you’re reading a complete story or extract from a longer work, avoid scenes with long descriptive passages. These can be hard to listen to and your audience will switch off. Action and dialogue work best because they push the story along. Limit scenes to those with two or three characters.

Print your story in large font (minimum 12pt) and at least 1.5 line spacing. Stage lighting can be shadowy and I don’t know a single reader that hasn’t lost their place when reading from a story printed in 10pt single line spacing.

Print your story on one side of the paper only. You have enough to think about without shuffling paper.

Number your pages and leave them loose, don’t staple them together. Again, this avoids shuffling paper, which is distracting to the audience.

Breathe. For many actors, breath is everything. Basic deep breathing is easy: Belly expands like a balloon on the in breath, deflates on the out breath. It will change your life, your reading and your nerves.

Practice reading aloud before the event (also known as Rehearsal). Try reading the story on a loud whisper. (Whispering loudly means you need to breathe more deeply and the deeper you breathe, the calmer you’ll be). Then read it at normal voice and notice the difference.

Mark the Page. Treat your story as if it’s a script. If there are words you stumble over, mark them; if you need to pause for effect, mark it; if you need to emphasise a word or phrase, underline it. If you know you have a tendency to read too fast (and most of us do when we’re nervous), write ‘Slow Down’ across the top of every page. These marks act like stage directions. Be your own director and prepare your script for performance. You’ll feel much more confident in reading.

Voice warm up. Voice exercises help limber up your face, mouth and tongue. Being limber means less stumbling. What professional athlete runs a race without a warm up? Speak with your tongue out, exaggerate chewing like a cow, hum at different pitches. Google: ‘tongue twisters’, ‘lip rolls’, ‘vocal warm up.’

Get comfortable on stage before you begin. This is your show, so own the stage while you’re on it. Change the height of the mic, stand where there’s enough light on the page to read from and spread your weight evenly on both feet.

Take your time. Nerves will speed your reading up so you need to be conscious of slowing down. If you give weight and time to your words, so will your audience. Pause in the places where you know you’ll get a laugh. Let the audience enjoy the story.

Look up. Audiences like to know that they exist too. When you look at them, it confirms to them that they do. Memorise the first line and deliver it looking at your audience. If you’re way too nervous to look up when you’re in full flight, pre-prepare by marking places on the page where you will look up (see Mark the Page).

Trust the work. This one is slightly more enigmatic. Let the story do the telling, is another way of putting it. Don’t try too hard to ‘act’; just read the story. As the poet Yang Lian says, “We don’t read from the page, we read from the poem.” Meditate on that.

FAQI’m using a microphone. Do I still need to do a voice warm up? I’d recommend it. Even if you’re at the mic, a voice warm up is still going to help you calm down and get your tongue around pesky alliteration and other potential stumbling blocks in your story.

I know my story so well, I wrote it after all. Do I still need to practice reading it aloud as part of my prep? Yes. Reading silently is different to reading aloud. Even Patrick White read his work aloud (in his own room at least) to hear how it sounded. You may even find yourself tweaking things as you make new discoveries about your story.

I did everything you suggested and my first reading still sucked…

Congratulations! What you did was a really tough thing. There is no getting around the fact that often a first read is going to be a bone-shaking, gut churning, nerve-wracking experience and yes, it may not be brilliant. But you’ve done it, and discovery comes in the doing. Pin a medal on your chest and hunt out another opportunity. You might want a trusted friend in the audience, someone who understands the delicate, difficult thing it is that you’re doing and will give you honest, critical feedback without bruising your ego.

About Caroline Reid

Caroline wrote her first commissioned work for theatre twenty years ago and since then her plays have been performed, broadcast and published – Prayer to an Iron God by Currency Press, 2010. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in literary journals online and in print, including Review of Australian Fiction, Spineless Wonders, Verity La, Seizure, fourW and apt. From 2011 to 2014 Caroline produced the highly successful Spineless Wonders Presents story readings at The Wheatsheaf Hotel in Adelaide, described in Overland as ‘reliably enchanting events … closer to New York’s Selected Shorts than anything else in Australia.’ The SWP format has been successfully reproduced and adapted for Sydney audiences as Little Fictions.

Caroline has worked in urban and rural communities, with government organisations and not-for-profits; she has also facilitated and created work alongside independent artists, young people, artists with disabilities and school communities. Caroline has a passion for art in all its forms. She advocates and promotes the arts as a unique means of understanding each other and the world, and as a powerful context for learning.

Caroline currently mentors emerging writers in the community while completing her first novel, a coming of age story set in in a West Australian desert town. She lives in Adelaide, Australia.

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A Writer's Tale

Scarlett Van Dijk

Writer of young adult, fantasy series, the Sky Stone series, poetry and short stories.I hope to update this blog weekly with tips for writers and some personal stories. There will also be guest posts from fellow writers. Stay tuned!